Living Utopia – Leaving Utopia. Brussels: Modernist Urban Forms Evaluated against Pre-Existing Row Houses

Collective modernist housing was once a shared ideal. But it often proved to be a mere chimera. Yet, it cannot be cast aside without a clear analysis of its true nature as an answer to human housing. Hence, anthropology and sociology are called upon to reach back to the essence of dwelling. In order to dwell, every human being performs a series of operations to establish his position on Earth. We believe those anthropological skills to be common to all mankind. They can be depicted with three infra-cultural antonymic couples: Separation - Continuity; Exposure - Concealment; Appropriation - Alienation. Those three basic competences are culturally translated, turning space into socially recognizable places. The means of this translation are identified as structures of correspondence. They are a modus operandi that transforms human needs into artefacts as well as into signs distinguishing social positions. Therefore, they ought to be acknowledged by the members of a specific group. Besides, their transformation into artefacts should bring together contemporary materials and techniques. Architects have conceived various answers to the three basic anthropological operations. Some answers give preponderant consideration to one operation in particular, while others develop a balance, often through sedimentation in time. The concept of type is an example of such an answer. Through history, modern ruptures disturb structures of correspondence not only through changes in society itself – transforming positions as well as recognition codes - but also through changes in techniques and materials. Modern ideologies dismantle traditional structures of correspondence – which subsist nevertheless to a certain extent – to create new ones. Regarding collective housing, the modernist rupture of the 20th century is crucial. It pulls to pieces the usual codes of housing production and recognition. As such, Le Corbusier's Five points towards a new architecture contradict, item by item, every housing convention of the time. ...